Washington D.C., February 4, 2005 - Today
the National Security Archive posted the CIA's secret documentary
history of the U.S government's relationship with General Reinhard
Gehlen, the German army's intelligence chief for the Eastern Front
during World War II. At the end of the war, Gehlen established
a close relationship with the U.S. and successfully maintained
his intelligence network (it ultimately became the West German
BND) even though he employed numerous former Nazis and known war
criminals. The use of Gehlen's group, according to the CIA history,
Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of
the BND, 1945-49, was a "double edged sword" that
"boosted the Warsaw Pact's propaganda efforts" and "suffered
devastating penetrations by the KGB." [See Volume
1: Introduction, p. xxix]

The declassified "SECRET RelGER" two-volume
history was compiled by CIA historian Kevin Ruffner and presented
in 1999 by CIA Deputy Director for Operations Jack Downing to
the German intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) in remembrance
of "the new and close ties" formed during post-war Germany
to mark the fiftieth year of CIA-West German cooperation. This
history was declassified in 2002 as a result of the work of The
Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency
Working Group (IWG) and contains 97 key documents from various
agencies.

This posting comes in the wake of public grievances
lodged by members of the IWG that the CIA has not fully complied
with the mandate of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act and is
continuing to withhold hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation
related to their work. (Note 1) In interviews
with the New York Times, three public members of the
IWG said:

"I think that the CIA has defied the law, and in so
doing has also trivialized the Holocaust, thumbed its nose
at the survivors of the Holocaust and also at the Americans
who gave their lives in the effort to defeat the Nazis in
World War II." - Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman

"I can only say that the posture the CIA has taken
differs from all the other agencies that have been involved,
and that's not a position we can accept." - Washington
lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste

"Too much has been secret for too long. The CIA has
not complied with the statute." - Former federal prosecutor
Thomas H. Baer

The
IWG was established in January 11, 1999 and has overseen the
declassification of about eight million pages of documents from
multiple government agencies. Its mandate expires at the end of
March 2005.

The documentation unearthed by the IWG reveals extensive relationships
between former Nazi war criminals and American intelligence organizations,
including the CIA. For example, current records show that at least
five associates of the notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann worked for
the CIA, 23 other Nazis were approached by the CIA for recruitment,
and at least 100 officers within the Gehlen organization were
former SD or Gestapo officers. (Note 2)

The
IWG enlisted the help of key academic scholars to consult during
the declassification process, and these historians released their
own interpretation of the declassified material last May (2004)
in a publication called US
Intelligence and the Nazis. The introduction to this
book emphasizes the dilemma of using former Nazis as assets:

"The notion that they [CIA, Army Counterintelligence Corp,
Gehlen organization] employed only a few bad apples will not
stand up to the new documentation. Some American intelligence
officials could not or did not want to see how many German intelligence
officials, SS officers, police, or non-German collaborators
with the Nazis were compromised or incriminated by their past
service… Hindsight allows us to see that American use
of actual or alleged war criminals was a blunder in several
respects…there was no compelling reason to begin the postwar
era with the assistance of some of those associated with the
worst crimes of the war. Lack of sufficient attention to history-and,
on a personal level, to character and morality-established a
bad precedent, especially for new intelligence agencies. It
also brought into intelligence organizations men and women previously
incapable of distinguishing between their political/ideological
beliefs and reality. As a result, such individuals could not
and did not deliver good intelligence. Finally, because their
new, professed 'democratic convictions' were at best insecure
and their pasts could be used against them (some could be blackmailed),
these recruits represented a potential security problem."
(Note 3)

The Gehlen organization profiled in the newly posted CIA history
represents one of the most telling examples of these pitfalls.
Timothy Naftali, a University of Virginia professor and consulting
historian to the IWG who focused heavily on the declassified
CIA material, highlighted the problems posed by our relationship
with Gehlen: "Reinhard Gehlen was able to use U.S. funds
to create a large intelligence bureaucracy that not only undermined
the Western critique of the Soviet Union by protecting and promoting
war criminals but also was arguably the least effective and
secure in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As many in
U.S. intelligence in the late 1940s had feared would happen,
the Gehlen Organization proved to be the back door by which
the Soviets penetrated the Western alliance." (Note
4)

The documents annexed in the CIA history posted today by the
Archive echo the observations of Professor Naftali. While placing
much of the blame on the Army Counterintelligence Corps' initial
approach to Gehlen, this history emphasizes the CIA's own reluctance
to adopt responsibility for Gehlen's organization, yet the documents
show the CIA ultimately embracing Gehlen.

Some of the highlights from this secret CIA documentary history
include:

A May 1, 1952 report detailing how Gehlen and his network
were initially approached by U.S. army intelligence. (Document
6)

Two evaluations of the Gehlen operation from October 16
and 17, 1946, advising against the transfer of Gehlen's organization
to CIG hands and questioning the value of the operation as
a whole. (Documents 21
and 22)

A March 19, 1948 memorandum from Richard Helms, noting Army
pressure for the CIA to assume sponsorship of the Gehlen organization,
and continued concern over the security problems inherent
in the operation. (Document
59)

A December 17, 1948 report outlining the problems with the
Gehlen organization, but ultimately recommending CIA assumption
of the project. (Document
72)

In answer to the question "Can we learn from history?",
the IWG's consulting historians noted "The real question
is not whether we will make use of our past to deal with the present,
but rather how well we will do so. To do it well, we need these
documents." (Note 5)

"This secret CIA history is full of documents we never would
have seen under the Freedom of Information Act, because Congress
in 1984 gave the CIA an exemption for its 'operational' files,
on the grounds that such files were too sensitive ever to be released,"
commented Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive.
"The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act has proven this assumption
false. Release of these files has done no damage to national security,
has provided information of enormous public interest and historical
importance, and however belatedly, has brought a measure of accountability
to government operations at variance with mainstream American
values."

DocumentsNote: Many of the following documents are in PDF
format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.

Note: The following CIA history has been split
into separate pdf files for each separate document or volume introduction,
due to its large size. It includes relevant documents from the
CIA, Army Intelligence, and CIA predecessor organizations.

Forging
and Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND,
1945-49. Edited by Kevin C. Ruffner for
CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, and European
Division, Directorate of Operations. 1999. Released May 2002.

Document
1: Statement of Gerhard Wessel on Development of the German
Organization [undated]Document 2: Statement
of General Winder on the History of the Organization [undated]Document 3: Statement
of Hans Hinrichs on Early History of the Organization [undated]Document 4: Statement
of Heinz Danko Herre. April 8, 1953.Document 5: Statement
of General Gehlen on Walter Schellenberg Story (Post Defeat
Resistance) [undated]Document 6: Report of
Initial Contacts with General Gehlen's Organization by John
R. Boker, Jr. May 1, 1952. Document 7: Statement
of Lt. Col. Gerald Duin on Early Contacts with the Gehlen Organization
[undated]Document 8: Report of
Interview with General Edwin L. Sibert on the Gehlen Organization.
March 26, 1970.Document 9: Debriefing
of Eric Waldman on the US Army's Trusteeship of the Gehlen Organization
during the Years 1945-1949. September 30, 1969.